Good communication skills for both the interviewer and interviewee are very important. This includes knowing the importance of body language and how actions such as folding your arms or leaning forward affect the way you communicate. Maintaining eye contact and smiling are extremely important and help to communicate that you are open and trustworthy. A firm handshake is also a way of showing that you are a confident and suitable person for the job, but being over-confident is as bad as being shy and nervous, because that may make the interviewer see you as being dishonest or big-headed. The way you sit in the interview chair can also give signals to the interviewer. If you slouch down during the interview or tap your foot, you may appear to be uninterested in the job.
There are other non-verbal barriers that may affect how you communicate. Dress is an extremely important issue in recruitment and selection. How you dress will communicate to your interviewer whether or not you will fit into the organisation. It is usual in the business world to wear smart clothes in an interview, such as a suit and for men a tie. Your choice of dress may be a barrier to communication if you dress in a way that the interviewer does not expect. Wearing perfectly clean clothing and being neat and tidy also influences the interviewer.
*Barriers to communications
There are many barriers to communication that potential candidates could face on their interview with Boots. It is therefore the human resources in Boots job to ensure that there are no barriers to communication. Potential barriers include -
- Use of jargon not familiar to interviewee
- Use of activities or printed material not accessible by people with disabilities
- Use of activities that exclude people of a certain age
- Lack of empathy from interviewers to the personal circumstances of an interviewee
- Stereotyping
- Communicating unclear or confusing messages or questions
- Distance can be a barrier if interviewing over the phone or via videoconferencing
- Lack of time may lead interviewers to rush a candidate’s interview
- Noisy office with constant interruptions (people and phone ringing)
- Others include nervousness, inexperience of interviews etc
Overcoming barriers
If Boots find themselves to have communication barriers then there are things that they can do to overcome them.
Feedback - enables communication to become a two way process with both the sender and the receiver trying to achieve mutual understanding
Consider the words used - long complicated sentences and unfamiliar words confuse people.
Communication should be clear, complete, concise, concrete, correct and courteous.
Use repetition - repeating messages several time using different examples can help others to understand the messages being sent
Use empathy - seeing a situation from another person's viewpoint and trying to understand others opinions concerns and attitudes makes better communicators
Timing - poor timing can result in messages not being received effectively
Being positive rather than negative helps make communication more effective - what is wanted not what isn't wanted
Select the best location - talk somewhere that will encourage open communication not a noisy shop floor or a busy office
Listening reduces communication errors
Listening skills
Listening is very important for the interviewer so that he or she really hears what the candidate can offer the organisation and makes a decision to employ the right person. Sometimes interviewers will use summarising skills to help them listen. Summarising is a form of recapping, or going over, what has been said.
Analysing the answers and making sense of them may lead to further questions, and it is important that the interviewer has good listening and analytical skills in order to be able to probe the candidate in a fair and controlled manner. This may be the only chance the interviewer has to ask questions and compare candidates before deciding who will be chosen for the job. It is crucial that the interviewer can analyse and judge answers in order to make a decision.
Effective questioning
The use of effective questioning techniques is important for the interviewer, as asking the right questions will help the candidate to give the right answers.
There are two types of questions, open questions and closed questions.
Open questions - Questions that give the candidate the opportunity to give an extended answer. For example –
- What is your biggest strength?
- How would you deal with this problem?
These questions can help backup and check information given in the application form.
Closed questions - Questions that allow a candidate only to give a factual or yes-or-no answer. For example –
- Did you take a job last summer?
- How many GCSEs do you have?
Using a variety of types of question will allow the interviewer to gain a useful impression of the candidate, so it is essential that the questions are prepared before the interview, especially if it is to be done by a team or panel. It is also essential that it is decided –
- Who will be asking what questions
- Who will lead and close the interview
- How long are the interviews going to take, making sure each one last the same length of time? (30 mins average)
Candidates are usually given an outline of the format of the interview, for example how long it will last and the type of questions they will be asked. This allows them to try to do their best. It is important that appropriate and equivalent questions are asked of all candidates so that each person has a fair chance of getting the job. Therefore –
- a woman must not be asked about her marital status or whether or not she has children
- no one should be asked about sexual orientation
- no one should be asked about religious or political beliefs
- no one should be asked about his or her social life
As well as this documentation being given to the applicant. The interviewing panel also need to ensure that they have the right documentation to enable them to be able to have background information on the candidate. The panel would need things such as –
- The job description
- The person specification
- The job advertisement
- Any assessments that the candidates have already completed i.e. personality profiles, aptitude tests etc
- CV’s
- Any references that may have been obtained.
Other examples of preparation that needs to be decided includes –
- Carefully plan and choose the location, making sure clear directions have been sent out. In this case it will be the Boots Hanley store which is the biggest store in the area. if the applicants get the job they may be trained at this store and then transferred to the new Trentham store.
- How many interviewees/candidates are you going to see?
- Will their be a series of interviews for each candidate?
Legislation
Legislation has already been discussed. When interviewing the potential candidates then Boots need to ensure that they are aware of the legislation in place that they need to follow. This means following the acts including –
- Sex Discrimination Acts 1975/1986
- Race relations Act 1976
- Equal Pay Acts 1970 and 1983
- Disability Discrimination Act 1995
- The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974
- Working Time Regulations Act 1998
- Employment Act 2002
Organisations must ensure that their procedures abide by certain criteria. Recruitment and selection must be:
- Non-discriminatory
- Fair
- Reliable
Therefore, each of the following key areas needs to be closely monitored to ensure discrimination does not take place. Some businesses have procedures and policies that recruiting staff have to abide by to ensure equality of opportunity.
- Drawing up the job description and person specification
- Advertising a post
- Short-listing
- Interviewing
- Decision making
*Decision making
The panel can make their decisions in various ways. These include –
Pareto Analysis - Selecting the most important changes to make.
Paired Comparison Analysis - Evaluating the relative importance of different options.
Grid Analysis - Selecting between good options.
Decision Trees - Choosing between options by projecting likely outcomes.
PMI - weighing the pros and cons of a decision.
Force Field Analysis - Analyzing the pressures for and against change.
Cost/Benefit Analysis - Seeing whether a change is worth making.
The Scoring Matrix – giving scores on the questions that have been posed to the candidates, these scores can then be easily compared on a graph or table, and then the winner as such will be the best person for the job
Feedback
At the interview, candidates are also informed about the next stage of the process. They will be given a date and time by which they will be told whether they have been successful. This is a form of feedback. Candidates will also be told what will happen to their personal information if they are not successful. It may be destroyed, but some organisations ask candidates for permission to keep the information for, say, another six months so that if another job should become available, they can be considered. Keeping this information secure is part of the organisation's responsibility to maintain confidentiality. Making sure information is correctly stored and processed is usually the responsibility of the human resources department. People working within the human resources department are often involved in the interview process to check that everything is carried out appropriately and fairly, as they are responsible for keeping up-to-date on employment law
Once the candidate has got the job and been informed and also when the candidate has accepted the position, probably by telephone and then in writing, the last stage is to communicate with all the relevant people in the organisation to inform them about the person recruited, including line managers, other employees, senior management and the human resources department.
Effective and Efficient
It is crucial that the way that Boots interview their potential applicants is done in an effective and efficient way. To do this they need to ensure that their selection process is effective and fool proof and once they have come up with a good template as such for the way that they interview they should use this every time. Boots need to ensure that they use effective question techniques such as open and closed questions at the right time in the interview. Also it is a good idea to have a set routine for each candidate that is interviewed. You can do this by using the WASP template that allows a structure for the interview it looks like this –
Welcome
- Put candidate at ease by asking friendly questions such as, did you have a good journey?
- Introduce yourself and any other interviewing staff and shake hands
- Explain the structure of the interview to the candidate and how long it is likely to take
- Explain that you will be taking notes throughout the interview
- Tell the candidate they can ask questions at the end of the interview
- Reassure the candidate with appropriate use of body language such as smiling
Acquire (Information)
- Ask simple questions first using the application form as a template for question structure so there is a logical order
- Listen carefully to responses and ask follow up questions when you fail to obtain the information desired
- Observe the candidate’s body language, facial expressions and eye-contact
- Control the questioning and timing of the interview
- Ask enough questions to determine the suitability of the candidate
Supply (Information)
- Provide information about the job, its benefits and the terms and conditions of employment
- Discuss the organisation and its culture
- Give the candidate opportunity to ask questions about the job and organisation
Part
- Check there are no further questions
- Tell the candidate what happens next
- Thank the candidate for attending
- Shake hands and show candidate to reception
The benefits of having this structure and having an effective selection process include –
- Breaking down barriers to communication in the interview situation by making the candidates feel relaxed and welcome. Some barriers to communication could include – Using jargon not familiar to the candidate, Using activities that exclude people of a certain age, Lack of empathy from interviewers to the personal circumstances of an interviewee, Communicating unclear or confusing messages or questions, Lack of time may lead interviewers to rush a candidate’s interview, Noisy office with constant interruptions (people and phone ringing)
- Saves time – if Boots have a structure to their interviews then each interview is likely to take the same amount of time and therefore will save time, thus making the process effective and efficient.
- It provides an opportunity to make sure every one is treated the same way and given an equal amount of time.
- Recording the interview responses is easily controlled and gives clear guidance to operate an equal opportunities process.
Consequences
The consequences that Boots would face if they didn’t take note of the need for these different skills and following legislation rules could be detrimental. If they didn’t have a good process for selection then it would be totally unprofessional. It wouldn’t be efficient and would take much more time to carry out. It would also not ensure that the right person gets the job because there is a risk of the candidates not being compared fairly if the process isn’t efficient and well documented. Furthermore if Boots do not follow the legislation appropriately then there is a risk of them being investigated by the government for not having a fair and equal recruitment and selection process. This would not do the brand image any good and would not persuade any potential candidates to apply. Other effects that a bad selection process will have on Boots include –
- High employee turnover which is never good and will not be good for the moral of the staff and will be costly to Boots.
- The knock on effect of their market position in the economy, due to profits being diluted as a result of the high cost of recruitment.
Recommendations to Boots
I recommend that Boots have a set procedure for recruitment this procedure will help them follow guidelines and legislation whilst also having an efficient recruitment process. Here is a list of what I recommend the procedure entail for Boots –
- Prepare the interviews, think of questions, and produce scoring systems that will allow candidates to be scored on their interview. A scoring matrix based on qualifications and the assessment of experience through the answers received from competency questions will allow for good decisions to be made and for the process to be fair and equally compared.
- Gather all of the documentation needed, for example, CV’s question papers, candidate’s application form, and any recommendation forms that the candidate has handed in.
- Prepare tests for the candidates, this can include aptitude tests, ability tests etc.
- Ensure that legislation is being correctly followed and that all applicants have equal opportunities.
- Interview the candidates either face to face or by group interview, ensuring that a basic template using WASP is followed to give the interview structure.
If all of these bullet points are followed then the procedure should run smoothly. It is still important to ensure that all management i.e. Human resources and line managers are constantly aware of every process within the recruitment and selection. They need to be made aware of things such as –
- hours of work
- responsibilities (these should reflect the job spec)
- date of commencement
- any training courses that they need to be booked onto
These managers can then use this information to pass onto the successful candidates who get the job. All of this information should be sent formally and efficiently using correct communication methods such as e-mail, letters, telephone, memos etc. all processes need to be documented to show equal opportunities has been followed and to also make sure that the whole process is done quickly and professionally.
